My 10 Favorite Books: Janet Mock

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By Janet Mock

Dec. 2, 2016

For his bookshop and website One Grand Books, the editor Aaron Hicklin asked people to name the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. The next in the series is Janet Mock, an activist, the producer of the HBO documentary “The Trans List” and the author of “Redefining Realness” and a forthcoming memoir, due out this June.

“Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neale Hurston

I first read this novel at 16 and felt centered in ways I’d never felt before as a reader. I’ve since returned to it whenever I feel lost and am given affirmation to journey for answers, like Hurston’s protagonist Janie in the muck.

“The Color Purple,” Alice Walker

Celie’s audacity to give her journey words through prayer instilled in me an audacity to say that yes, I am deserving of testimony and deserve to be heard.

“The Age of Innocence,” Edith Wharton

Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel fulfilled me deeply as a lover of period piece romances. Her characters showed me early on that love is as much a choice as it is a feeling, and the pull of family, society and tradition can be overbearing.

“George,” Alex Gino

This small novel may have been written for young readers, but we can all learn and feel as we read about a trans girl yearning to take center stage as Charlotte in her class’s production of “Charlotte’s Web.”

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Janet MockCreditJulie Glassberg for The New York Times

“Waiting to Exhale,” Terry McMillan

This was the first book to give me a thrill, the first to make me feel as if I was doing more than merely eavesdropping on grown folks’ business — I was one of the girls. At 12, I loved this novel so much that I never returned it to the library.

When I first read this book, it was out of print. I felt I’d found a treasure when I uncovered a tattered copy online. It’s unapologetically feminist, queer, third-world, woke and woman. I am so glad it’s back in print for a new generation craving this kind of centering and elevated consciousness.

“Sula,” Toni Morrison

The character Sula was the first protagonist who made me feel O.K. with my own nonconformity, with the gray areas, with coloring outside the lines as a multiracial trans kid. Plus, Morrison’s writing about womanhood, convention and the fierce attachment of female friendship is astounding.

This book helped me give words, voice and deeper analysis to my activism, reminding me that we must be intersectional in our movement work. We will be judged not by those who attain the seemingly unattainable, but by how we care for the poor, the incarcerated, the targeted and the often forgotten. That lesson has never left me.

“Sister Outsider,” Audre Lorde

I read and write to find answers, and Lorde never fails to give me the wisdom I need. I am not a religious person, but reading this collection always leaves me stronger, nurtured and praising the Lorde.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou

This was the first autobiography that meant everything to me as a young survivor struggling to find voice and meaning through the overbearing darkness. Angelou did what great writers of memoir do; she let me know that I was not alone because someone else had been there and made it out to tell the truth.